analytical psychology – The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing

“No, one is not twenty-one again, but one has earned the gravitas, through life experience, to find that same youthful flame of passion again to create a unique, very personal life.”

~ The Astrology of Midlife and Aging, Erin Sullivan

One profound moment I can recall when myth and literature merged in my life started with a long stick, or some call sheath, of fennel and a stencil of Chiron.

Uranus goes Direst in Taurus 2023

“…so, it was left to Heracles to arrange a bargain with Zeus to exchange Chiron’s immortality for the life of Prometheus, who had been chained to a rock and left to die for his transgressions.” ~ Apollodorus, 2.5.4

Santa Monica Mountain Promethean Fennel sheath

They were in opposition to each other for a few years. I sat between them in my living room. Fennel was cut from a plant from my front yard. It stood about as tall as me. As it dries, a thick fennel stick becomes stronger and more resilient.

It rests near my hearth. The Chiron stencil is upon the wall in my living room. Art, I created years ago when my oldest son was young.

Yet there they were. I learned about the mythology that tells a story of Prometheus. He brought fire to humanity in such a fennel stick.

For this sacrifice he was punished and tortured by Zeus. Bound to a rock, and so the story goes.

Prometheus, it is the logos—that is, knowledge, consciousness, in a word—that lifts man above nature. But this achievement brings him into a tragic position between animal and God. Because of it, he is no longer the child of Mother Nature; he is driven out of paradise, but also, he is no god, because he is still tied inescapably to his body and its natural laws, just as Prometheus was fettered to the rock. Although this painful state of suspension, of being torn between spirit and nature, has long been familiar to man, it is only recently that woman has really begun to feel the conflict. And with this conflict, which goes hand in hand with increase of consciousness, we come back to the animus that eventually leads to the opposites, to nature and spirit and their harmonization.

~Jung, Emma. Animus and Anima: Two Essays (pp. 11-12). Spring Publications. Kindle Edition.

As if a secret story was told only to me. I finally comprehended it clearly. I imagined dancing around while holding hands with my two dear friends. I finally stumbled upon a hidden myth that it was Chiron who set Prometheus free.

The day I found this out. My living room bounded with joy. Here in my little living room, I came to understand this mystery! I felt liberated as well in a magical way.

It took me a great deal of time to see this, but there they were in opposition to each other. Yet not them but the struggle was in me. I mused so many imagined ideas. How much longer was it that I also stumbled upon the quote from Shelly’s prose Prometheus Unbound? I suddenly read the passage and knew the truth of what I read.

A conversation between the earth and moon. Prose describing the liberation of Prometheus towards the heavens.

Chiron, in Greek mythology, one of the Centaurs, the son of the Titan Cronus and Philyra, an Oceanid or sea nymph. Chiron lived at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly. Unlike other Centaurs, who were violent and savage, he was famous for his wisdom and knowledge of medicine.

The moment Chiron sets Prometheus free.

The Earth

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!

The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,

The vaporous exultation not be confined!

Ha! Ha! the animation of delight

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,

And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.

The Moon

Brother mine, calm wanderer,

Happy globe of land and air,

Some Sprint is darted like a beam from thee,

Which penetrated my frozen frame,

And passes with the warmth of flame,

With love, and odour, and deep melody

Through me through me!

(320 _ 330 Prometheus Unbound)

I cried. my heart almost leaps out with him towards the heavens. Overjoyed how this all came together. I bear witness to this. Now I share my joy here. To at least know in a creative way, how liberation may be viewed by the earth and the moon. Also, I address humanity … we need to see how precious literature merged with mythology is. To feel it and be inspired. To know the hope, it offers us now!

Now to take this story further. Finding out that I will be working with Uranus, which is now in opposition to Uranus in my birth chart. I am taken down on a path to know Uranus better. To know myself better as well as humanity. I realize as we get older, we all share in this journey. Be it consciously or unconsciously. I want to know Uranus better consciously.

I already know Uranus better than I knew. I stumbled upon a book that made me realize all this time I had a relationship with the Uranian myth through what I have known about Prometheus.

“…the planet Uranus was reflected in the myth of Prometheus: the initiation of radical change, the passion for freedom, the defiance of authority, the act of cosmic rebellion against a universal structure to free humanity of bondage, the urge to transcend limitation, the intellectual brilliance and genius, the element of excitement and risk. So also Prometheus’s style in outwitting the gods, when he used subtle stratagems and unexpected timing to upset the established order: he, too, was called the cosmic trickster. And the resonant symbol of Prometheus’s fire conveyed at once several meanings—the creative spark, cultural and technological breakthrough, the enhancement of human autonomy, the liberating gift from the heavens, sudden enlightenment, intellectual and spiritual awakening—all which astrologers consider to be connected with the planet Uranus.”

~ Tarnas, Richard. Prometheus the Awakener (pp. 20-21). Spring Publications, Inc. Kindle Edition

Water Color by by Hudley

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The other night at the local Pub, the Scotland Yard, my friend, a master toxicologist, was talking about synchronicity. She seemed a bit frustrated about them. They were happening to her a lot and she did not quite know what to do about these experiences.

“What do they mean regarding me?”

She affirmed many times that evening.

Telling me that many synchronicities happened to her in one day, one right after the other.

“You know you have heard about multiple orgasms? Well, when that many synchronicities happen in a few hours or minutes; I call them multiple-synchronicities.” I said.

The pub was loud, but I think she got the drift in what I was saying. These synchronicities are extraordinary experiences found in rather simple things around us that have symbolic meanings relative to us personally. Now how can that be, that is just strange!

I was extremely interested in her conversation. I used to have a lot of such experiences. I was glad she brought it up, the subject, because I did not often talk to others about it. I found my answers in books. Carl Jung the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology; and the Medicine Wheel, based on the teachings of Native Americans, have both been major sources for me. They both teach us about synchronicity!

The medicine wheel looks at synchronicity as a coincidence. I was taught that a coincidence has great meaning, and one should take notice of them. They are more than chance.

Jung refers to a synchronicity as more than causality. Jung coined the term, and it was based on a visit he had with a scientific community.

Albert Einstein was in attendance and he had a great influence on Jung. Jung seemed to need to incorporate this concept of synchronicity within the rationalist scientific community. The five senses are especially important yet there is another sense that needs to be included that was more than the usual idea of causality.

Recently I viewed the film, Forrest Gump. It took me many years to see the film. It was a highly published media movie. So, I tend to somehow reject this. Anyway, after seeing the film again I realized something. At the end of the film Forrest gives a wonderful definition of synchronicity.

“I don’t know if Mamma was right or if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I do not know if we each have a destiny, or if we are all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it is both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”

The proof is found in the extraordinary way that the character of Forrest Gump lives his life. He lives a life of synchronicity.

To me the heart and the mind need to be at a place of balance and our insect antennae, like the intuitive praying mantis, need to be up and aware and open to a new type of living. Somehow this is when we are balancing experience with emotions and intellect. It is letting the feather blow around you and then grasping the notion that something special is being revealed just to you as an intuitive pat on the back.

This little essay is based on a night at the local pub that took place a few weeks ago thanks to a master toxicologist.

This whole process has led me back to Carl Jung and IRA Progoff and his book entitled Jung, Synchronicity, and Human Destiny. They have led me back to the I Ching. A book that gives one understanding and is based on ancient principles of synchronicity and Taoism.